Friday, 17 August 2012

Raisins Scones Recipe

Today I decided to do a sorta English tea spread, the kind usually served in three tiers in restaurants with scones, cakes, cookies or biscuits, pies/tarts, sandwiches and fresh fruits accompanied by the usual English Tea which will be either Earl Grey, Darjeeling or English Breakfast Tea. The more creative cafes now have like fusion flower tea with different taste and flavours like one in Penang, the Suffolk House serves a very very commendable version of English Tea spread :)

Anyway, I for one do not know how my family will be able to finish everything if I'm to do everything so I decided to stick with the classic cucumber sandwiches, scones and little savoury tarts (beef) - recipe here

For scones, I planned to shape them like the classic english scones at first, but in the end just decided to forgo the effort and drop them off straight off the ladle. :P
This said, my scones do not have the classic golden brown top and bottom and whitish belt in the middle. However, they tasted fine and crisp on the outside and fluffy in the inside. Yay!

(before starting, heat oven to 200 degree Celsius)
1) Mix the flour, baking powder, and sugar together and add in the cold butter. Crumb them until you get breadcrumbs-like texture. Due to the low amount of butter, you will basically get back a mixture which looks like flour with the butter inside...somewhere...LOL (as opposed to those of tarts HERE)
2) Stir in the eggs and vanilla essence.
3) Add in the milk gradually until you get a rather sticky-ish mixture. I keep mine a little sticky but you can add in more flour or lessen the milk so you can shape it with sharp round biscuit/cookie cutter (This way you get the classic scones shape)Do keep in mind that sticky batter=fluffier scones/softer in the inside...the more you dry them up with more flour, the easier they are to shape but they will be slightly harder...
4) Dollop onto greased baking pan (like me) or cut with cookie cutter as per mentioned.
*Remember to lightly dust the cutter with flour first*
5) I baked mine till golden brown about 20-25 mins (estimated).